Oh my...

Well they say good things come in threes - or is that celebrity deaths? Anyway, I hit my third big tournament cash in under two months, and this time it was online.

Full Tilt has a Sunday tournament called the 100K Double Deuce. It's a $20 + $2 entry fee with a guaranteed prize pool of $100,000. The entry fee is way above my microscopic bankroll (currently at about $40 total) so once a week I have been entering a .60 satellite to gain entry.

I won a seat two weeks ago and was unable to play as I had a date with my little girl at the aquarium. So I tried again the next day, plunking down another whopping 60 cents (it actually is whopping when your roll is only 40 bucks) and promptly winning a seat for the following Sunday.

This time my schedule remained open, so I was able to log on and sit down with 9001 other players, including 13 Full Tilt "Red" pros. Professional poker players who are either fully or partially sponsored by the site. Incidentally, I outlasted them all, including WSOP bracelet winners Scott Fischman and Lee Watkinson.

In keeping with my strategy of monk-like patience sprinkled with the occasional burst of selective aggression, I managed to hang on for over seven hours - finally finishing in 42nd place and collecting $360 for my efforts.

Wow.

In dollar amount, this was not my biggest cash (that would be the $2330 I pocketed in December at Hollywood Park) but it was by FAR the biggest return on my investment. To get $360 for .60 cents, the mind truly boggles.

Incidentally, the hands I saw and took place in, were a roller coaster of suck-outs and monsters. A very large (probably over twice, perhaps three times, the number of hands that would have occurred in a live session) smorgasbord of poker. Some typically horrible online poker players, and surprisingly some very good players. So good in fact, that for the first time in a MTT, either live or online, I really had moments where I felt completely outclassed by a couple of my table-mates. Sobering, yes, but also refreshing in a way. This game still has so much for me to unlock.

Most notable hands - I had my aces cracked, twice. I was at-risk and basically crushed with my AQ up against AK with an ace on board. I caught runner runner for a broadway straight. But for that one exception, I always managed to get all my money in good or at least in a race. My final hand of the night was of the latter category, my KQ suited push got looked up by a small pocket pair and failed to improve. I was not thrilled with this play on my part, but it was acceptable. It was technically a race, with me on the slightly underdog side of the equation.

As I mentioned, I used selective aggression - most of the time small balling my way to taking down pots about every other orbit or so if I wasn't catching cards. I would make a standard raise, and follow it up with a c-bet of about 2/3 the pot even if I didn't connect. It worked often enough for me to keep accumulating chips.

A few times, I found myself getting short stacked, and I had to abandon the small-ball approach - taking a deep breath, closing my eyes and shoving all my chips in. I almost always tried to make my move without junk - almost. A couple of times, the blinds were approaching and the time (meaning my targets) were just right so I went all-in with trash. Thanks to my reads and a bit of luck, I managed to take down those pots without showdowns.

A couple of times when I had better starting cards (suited connecters, small pairs) I did get called. Two of these incidents stick out in my memory. Once with AJ and another time with pocket tens. Both times, thankfully, my hands won the day, flopping two pair with my AJ and trips with my tens.

Despite my apparently relentless success in large MTT's of late, I'm still very much aware, that one has to get lucky multiple times to go deep in these things.

And so there it is. As of January 12, in less than four months, I have built an online bankroll from 0 dollars, to just over $407.

I've contemplated withdrawing most of it, but instead have decided for now to 'let it ride' so to speak, and see if I can grow my roll even more. Sticking with Chris Ferguson's bankroll guidelines, I plan to step up a little bit in stakes with Sit-N-Go's, where hopefully I can fare a little better than I did against the devastating rake and unequivocally retarded players of the $1.25 level.

As for MTT's, I don't think I'll play that much more expensive events than I have - I love the concept of spending very little and winning very big. I don't know that I'll ever beat my mark of turning .60c into $360! But I would love to try!